Chapter 14
HANDSOME GENTLEMAN
Elizabeth folded her latest letter from home and placed it in the top drawer of her writing table along with all the others she had received since arriving at Pemberley.
The letters from her younger sister Mary, more often than not, were filled with platitudes and an abundance of multiple syllable words that flowed well and evidenced her sister’s dedication to the art of composing letters, but did not do very much to satisfy Elizabeth’s curiosity about what was happening in Meryton among their friends and neighbors.
At least Mary wrote, which was more than she could say about her two youngest sisters, Kitty and Lydia.
Not that Elizabeth expected it for the two of them could rarely be bothered by anything that did not directly affect their own chances for gaiety.
Then there were the letters from her mother remarking upon every word that Elizabeth had written to her that had anything in the slightest to do with the members of the Pemberley party.
“What is Lady Catherine de Bourgh really like?
“Are the aristocrats all that different from the rest of us?”
But even more than that, her mother wanted to know more about the single gentlemen.
Of Jane’s ability to secure the younger Mr. Darcy’s affections, Mrs. Bennet had no doubt for she always was certain that her eldest daughter could not have been so beautiful for no reason.
But what of the handsome gentleman from the North, whom apparently Jane had also mentioned in her letters?
“Is he as rich as Mr. Darcy will one day be with the passing of his father?
“Is he engaged to another, or is he in want of a wife?”
Her mother would further decry that if the gentleman was not single, what difference did anything having to do with him matter? And if he is in want of a wife, which was indeed her hope, then Elizabeth must do everything in her power to garner his notice and, eventually, his affections.
Mrs. Bennet’s desire to know more about Mr. Darcy’s cousin was equally heightened. The son of an earl, even a second son, was no small prize. He, after all, was wise enough to have obtained a commission in the military, which was really something in Mrs. Bennet’s way of thinking.
“Is he handsome?” she had asked in her first letter. “Oh, what did that matter?” she had subsequently responded and further amended by way of a question in the very next line: “More importantly, is he single?”
The occasional citation of how it might have been so much better if her Lydia had gone to Pemberley in Elizabeth’s stead had to be mentioned, for surely she would know how to act in the company of a young man in want of a wife.
There were detailed instructions on how Elizabeth should comport herself toward that endeavor, which always completed her mother’s missives.
By the third or fourth letter, Elizabeth comfortably skipped those parts having committed her mother’s not always so helpful advice fully to heart.
What would she do without Charlotte was always Elizabeth’s question to herself upon finishing letters from her mother?
Charlotte’s letters, she always saved for last and upon occasion read them more than once.
Such sensible correspondence could also be relied upon from her aunt in London, a Mrs. Madeline Gardiner, who was the wife of her mother’s brother.
A fashionable woman of education and intelligence, she was one of the few people in her family of whom Elizabeth could only find reasons to admire, which was really saying something for despite their share of faults, Elizabeth was not wont to criticize her relations, at least not aloud.
She could only imagine how her aunt would regard the Pemberley party, especially the Bingley sisters.
Perhaps on the occasion of a particular blessed event, I shall find out, Elizabeth considered.
How wonderful it would be to walk about the lanes of Pemberley arm in arm with my favorite aunt in the not so distant future.
She prayed her mother was correct in her estimation of Jane’s prospects.
What a wonderful thing that would be indeed.